Bargain time #4

At the weekend I went to my village fete which included a car boot sale.

I scored this skirt for £1.

£1! It's from Miss Selfridge and it still has the tag in.

And it had pockets. I'm very excited about the pockets.

Bargain indeed.

I also got these two bags for 50p each. Similar to this one I got last year which was probably from the same lady.

One has a whole load of beads in it, including a pretty glass pendant with daisies on it. The other bag has a lot of bangles in it and some necklaces. All good stuff.

With some my new beads I fancied up my Mum's sun hat for her.

I just threaded the beads in a sort of pattern onto some brown ribbon.

She's been showing it off already.

Have you got any great bargains recently?  



Send in the clowns

Last Friday was circus night at the SU. I went as a clown. A chic clown. That's right, no big red nose or rainbow afro for me.

The only thing I had to make for my outfit was the hat.

I made a cone out of some card from a cereal box and copied part of the pattern from my dress which I painted with acrylic paint. I stuck a white pom-pom on the top, a strip of slightly ruched felt at the bottom and punched two holes to thread ribbon through to tie it to my head. It stayed on the whole night. Pretty cool right.

Cupcake hat!

I found this photo here, and though 'why should Blythes have all the fun?'

So my Mum kindly whipped up a people-sized version of the cupcake hat. I added the cherry (a red pom-pom) and the sprinkles (strands of wool).

Sleepy Owl Hat

I was shocked the other day when my sister told me she really doesn't like hats with faces. Please tell me I'm not alone in thinking they are the darned cutest things ever!

In addition to my panda hat I now have a sleepy owl hat, and here's how I made it... 

I started with a Grandad cardigan, which was kindly donated to me by my Grandad as it had a hole in it.

I cut a section from the back of the cardigan, mine measured approximately 40x25cm to fit my head, and folded it in half and folded over the edges

The cardigan I used had suede pockets and strips down the front so I unpicked them and cut them into smaller strips. I tied these into two bundles for the fringey ears on the hat. These could also be made with felt or another kind of fabric.

Because I was sewing the hat inside out, I put the suede strips through the corners of the hat, with most of them on the inside. I then machine sewed the two sides, but had to hand sew through the suede as it is too thick for the sewing machine.

For the facial features I cut the eyes out of felt and the nose and eyelids from more of the suede. I glued these on with UHU glue and stitched around the edges to make sure they were definitely attached.

I then stitched around the eyes with white wool to create that signature owl look.

C'est fini

Now I'm ready for the impending winter.

Hat-cessories

My Mum crochets the hats and I make the brooches. It's a winning combo!

Panda hat!

This isn't quite so relevant now that the sun is shining, but have y'all seen this panda hat from River Island?

Pretty cute right.

So I made my own version. I used a white hat that my mum crocheted a few years ago and asked her to crochet two white half circles for the ears. Then I stitched black and white wool onto the hat for the eyes and nose and sewed on the ears.

Now I'm prepared for when winter comes around again